Iz iskry — plamya [From Sparks — Flame], a poster by an anonymous artist. Ordered by [Proletkino], Moscow, 1924, 107 x 71 cm.

This Constructivist film poster announces the release of the first installment in the six-part epic about the revolutionary traditions of the Ivanovo-Voznessensk textile workers, written and directed by Dmitry Bassalygo and produced by the short-lived Proletkino Studios. The film itself was a commercial failure, and is now lost — but when shown at the Paris Arts Exhibition, it received a gold medal, on par with the Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin! An interesting article containing quite a bit of information about the history of Proletkino and its artistic program can be found at http://www.kinozapiski.ru/ru/article/sendvalues/1215. The studio concentrated on creating documentaries and feature films of the “artistic-revolutionary” character, to be shown at workers’ clubs at reduced prices, but also exported abroad.

An interesting relic of a little-known chapter in the history of the Soviet cinema, and a well-designed avant-garde poster. It definitely deserves an in-depth study that we could not afford on a short notice — especially when one considers the names of Moscow avant-garde artists involved with film poster production at the time.

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